On the Needles

Friday, August 15, 2008

A new feature of Portrait of a Wannabe Domestic Goddess:Conversations with a 2-year-old

Cast of Characters:I-minionMomE-minion

Setting in the kids’ bedroom at nightI-minion: Mom, there's a crocodile in here.Mom: Crocodile, please go to my room. [Pause] The crocodile's gone, go to sleep.[Time elapses, maybe 2 minutes]I-minion: Mom, there's A LOT of crocodiles in here.Mom: Attention all crocodiles. You are asked to leave the room immediately. Go to mommy's room. Jasmine will escort you to the creek in five minutes. OK Ian, now ALL the crocodiles are gone.[After a minute of silence]E-minion: Mom, did Jasmine really take the crocodiles to the goose water? (that's what she call the creek because of the number of geese)Mom: Yes.E-minion: OK, I can sleep now.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

What were you doing ten years ago? (1998)The year 1998 marked my freshman and sophomore years of college. I don't recall much specifically about the year. In the fall of 1998, I was coordinating my dorm room with best bud, Kelli, at http://www.teknicolorkelli.blogspot.com/. I vividly remember my father thinking the idea of living with a friend wasn't a good one. A decade later we're still very close.

What were you doing five years ago? (2002)The year 2002 was a busy one. This wannabe domestic goddess was planning her wedding, or should I say, pawning as much off to my future-mother-in-law as possible. In August, I was finalizing the details of the wedding and coordination of getting all of the wedding stuff that was coming from Pennsylvania to Iowa, and then back to South Dakota for the wedding. We were married Sept. 7. We bought our house in the spring and spent the summer remodeling. We still are remodeling. We adopted Rocky, our black lab, the day before we signed the papers for the house. Then he promptly ran away after jumping through the window. He came home, though. Later in the summer we adopted Jasmine, our rottweiler.

Five things on my to-do list today:1. Pick tomatoes and other wonderful garden goodness2. Brush the dogs and cat. It's shedding time3. Start my first pair of two-at-a-time toe-up socks on circular needles4. Bathe the kids, it's summer time. They like to make mud puddles. This is a must do.5. Wash Iminion's pants, he's a potty trainee and we do a load every couple of days.

What snacks I enjoy:1. Frozen Hershey Bar smeared in creamy peanut butter and a large glass of ice-cold milk2. Air Popped Popcorn, heavily salted, no butter.3. Jalapeno peppers stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon and bacon. Yum!

What would I do if I suddenly became a billionaire?Lift my house up, and put a usable basement under it, finish all pending projects at the house, including hubby's never-ending list of car projects; endow some substantial scholarships at the college I work for and for the Journalism and Mass Communication Department at my Alma mater. I'd probably establish my sheep/wool and hand-dyed hand spun yarn business sooner than originally planned. I might seriously consider taking in broken and beaten Labrador and rottweilers as a rescue program.

Three bad habits?1. Biting my hang nails2. Staying up way too late and reading in bed.3. Chatting on the phone while driving

Five jobs I've had:1. Cashier at Randall's in Mitchell2. Customer Service Manager, managing the front end of the grocery store, supervising cashiers, carryouts and customer service desk folks.3. Public Relations Specialist (when in college)4. Newspaper Reporter5. Grant Writer

(That is officially the total number of "real" jobs that I've been paid for in my life)

Five things you don't know about me:1. I am deathly afraid of water that is deeper than I am tall. Since I'm only 5 foot 3 inches, that limits my opportunities for water recreation.2. I really hate emptying the dishwasher of clean dishes3. After my parents arguing for YEARS, I mean YEARS about the "Proper" way to fold towels, I have become anal retentive like my father, and fold them his way. Now I get upset when hubby doesn't fold towels the way I do. (problem is solved since he won't touch towels and lets me handle 99 % of laundry.)4. I prefer to drink hot tea to coffee, but that doesn't mean I don't like a cuppa joe, black.5. I always knew I was going to have twins.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Life got pretty hectic for the last month or so. To sum it up using I-minion's favorite phrase we "fixed."

1. We hung a ceiling in our front porch, which allowed me to hang my porch swing from the rafters instead of an A-frame like a swing set.

2. My father-in-law built floor-to-ceiling book shelves in my hall way and built lockers in my laundry room.

3. My husband got his mojo going to get on of our "twin projects" completed, a 1949 International Pickup. It's running and driving now. He has grand plans of taking it to a car show this weekend. I don't know if he's rounded up a seat, or a radiator hose, or fuel line yet. But, apparently these are "little things."

4. The garden grew. I watched the weeds grow, too. Eventually I weedwhacked them. See why I'm a wannabe domestic goddess? We've picked a few tomatoes, a lot of cucumbers and I'm going to be inundated with serrano peppers soon. What the heck do I do with hundreds of them?

5. I broke my knee. Well, basically I really messed it up. But, not in a way that is typically understood. My ACL is in tact, so are my ligaments and it isn't sprained, which is why a month and a half of physical therapy haven't helped. I'm off to the doctor tomorrow to find out what the next step is. One thing I do know is my knee hurts. A lot.

6. I got really motivated to get a few knitting projects done, but then, life sidelined most of them. I'm finally getting going again.

7. I-minion is a potty trainee. Diapers allowed at nap and over night, but we're getting to the point they are dry.

8. We tried potty training E-minion at the same time, but she got stressed out. We're taking our time with it now.

9. It got hot in Iowa, that means I didn't really cook, or do much of anything, see No. 5 for explaination.

You would be surprised how many blog posts have this title. The month or so have been really hectic at this wannabe domestic goddess' house. With real life obligations, visiting relatives and huge work deadlines prompted me to not want to even look at a computer, let alone type, edit photos or post on the blog. Now things are slowing down, I'll be posting with regularity, again, I hope.